It has almost become a truism that in the Information Age, office workers have become enveloped in information, with some of this information being central to immediate and ongoing tasks, and other information being of less immediate importance. In most offices, information is scattered about in many places. Desk surfaces may be piled high with papers and books; in addition, computer screens, each of which may display different sorts of information, are ubiquitous. Even a single computer screen may be crowded with information, in which e-mail, word processing, and programming applications all occupy a portion of the screen, or alternatively, a different “window”. Furthermore, the perimeter of the typical computer screen, as well as the office workspace generally, are often occupied by numerous “sticky” notes to remind the user of various events, things to do, phone numbers, and so on. Indeed, notes on paper do have the advantage of being easy to use when it comes to certain kinds of tasks, such as reading, cross-referencing and annotating information, physically moving information, and posting information (to get someone's attention or remind someone of something). For example, posting information may involve placing information in a place that is physically significant to the user, such as next to the phone.
As the typical work environment has continued to rely on information scattered among available surfaces and objects, managing this information has proven to be cumbersome. Unfortunately, capturing information that is physically strewn about an office does not easily lend itself to an electronic solution. In particular, the notes posted by office workers along the perimeters of their computer screens have so far eluded a means of being handled electronically. There remains a need for handling such information electronically, as well as a need to free electronic information from the confines of an isolated computer screen, thereby allowing information to be distributed more naturally and easily throughout the office environment.